


the world spins madly on

by joldiego



Series: the story they will write someday [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I love my girls, Next-Gen Avengers, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Strong Language, a bit of a character study on Lila and Cassie, incredibly generic villain, some heavy themes ig
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 02:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joldiego/pseuds/joldiego
Summary: Lila didn't mind being the team's loose cannon.But Cassie Lang clearly minded a lot.





	the world spins madly on

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this instead of writing my final paper for psych :///  
> but enjoy my two of my favorite girls!!
> 
> I recommend at least reading "the kids are alright" before this one, bc it provides a bit of context
> 
> (for reference, this takes place in 2032, so Lila is 21, Peter, Harley, Shuri, and Cassie are all 25)
> 
> title from The World Spins Madly On by The Weepies

Lila knew that she rubbed some people the wrong way.

And she was fine with that.

Because she was young, and because she was a _she_ , Lila knew that she had to be pushy to get people to listen to her in this line of work. And if that meant that she was too bossy, or too blunt, or too bitchy, that was fine. Because if she were a man she would be displaying _strong leadership qualities_.

So, Lila was proudly a bitch.

When the local LEOs wouldn’t establish the perimeter she needed set, Lila would rip them a new one until they knew that she wasn’t someone to be messed with. While Peter was their team’s de facto leader, Lila wouldn’t hesitate to chime in when she thought he was being a moron. And _sure_ , maybe it was a little bit too easy to goad her into a fight by insulting her pride, but she’d rather bare a few bruises than be disrespected.

Okay, so _maybe_ her desire to seen as tough shit made her a little bit reckless. (As her father was constantly warning her.) But Lila _liked_ it that way. She didn’t mind being the team’s loose-cannon.

But Cassie Lang clearly minded a lot.

Cassie reminded Lila of Cooper in a lot of ways, always on her ass about every little thing she does. _Think before you leap, Lila. Pick your battles, Lila. Geeze, Lila, think about something other than your god damn pride for once._ The difference was that Coop was her brother, and it was his _job_ to be on her ass about shit like that. Cassie was this random, uppity know-it-all who couldn’t keep her nose out of Lila’s business.

It was fairly obvious to the rest of the team that Cassie and Lila weren’t the best of friends. They had gotten along once upon a time, when they were all kids, but their line of work drew out traits in each of them that just didn’t mesh well.

Cassie was calculated, preferred precision and clarity. Lila liked to rely on instinct. They were different people, and that was _fine_. Within the context of the team, they worked. They got the job done.

It all came to a head when Harley got hurt.

They had been fighting an AIM scientist’s rather gross genetic experiment in lower Manhattan, these grotesque looking bird-like creatures, each about the size of a bear, some with odd-looking weapons mounted on their backs.

(“I swear, weird shit like this never happens in Wakanda,” Shuri laments, wiping slime and feathers from her face.)

Peter was webbing them up like a pro, Shuri and Cassie fighting on the ground, Harley soaring around the entire scene frying them with his repulsors.

Lila was hopping between roofs on the outskirts of the action, picking off birds with trick arrows and nets, their second eye in the sky.

But then she saw one peel away from the action, dangerously close to their perimeter. She let loose an arrow into the street below, but the damn thing _caught_ it in its weird toothy beak, smugly snapping it in two, resuming its trek towards the few onlooking civilians dumb enough to stick around.

_Lila could get down there and beat it into the ground real quick. She’d be back before anyone knew she was gone._

She casts herself a zip line and rides it down to the street, maintaining her momentum enough to launch herself up onto the thing’s back, choking it out with her bow.

“Lila, I’ve got a bogey and I’m a little preoccupied, I could use some help!” Harley’s voice crackles over the comms.

“Just a minute!” Lila grits through her teeth as she feels the creature begin to weaken, slumping under her weight.

“Lila, where the hell did you go?” Cassie. Ugh.

It finally falls to the ground and Lila wacks it on the back of the head for good measure. “Just taking care of a stray, I’m on my way back up now.”

“We need you up there, Lila!” _God, couldn’t Cassie hop off her dick for, like, two seconds._

She’s riding her zip line back up the side of the building when it happens.

Harley’s fighting off three of the creatures at once, they’ve swarmed him and are gnawing at his armor, sparks flying every time one closes its jaw.

And then, as if thinking with one mind, they all grab on tight to Harley’s armor, dive-bombing towards the ground with terrifying speed.

Taking Harley with them.

Lila has time to let off one arrow before they hit the ground, but it’s not enough.

He hits the asphalt head first, and he doesn’t move once he’s down.

_Fuck. Fucking shit._

They wrap up the battle fairly quickly after that, because then it was desperate, it was personal.

Lila feels like she blinks and then she’s back in the briefing room at the tower, breathing a sigh of relief as her Dad relays Helen's message that Harley is going to be just fine, but that he’ll definitely be out of commission for a couple of weeks.

No one has said outright that it’s Lila’s fault, but Peter is looking at her with that not-mad-but-disappointed gaze of his, Shuri keeps glancing in her direction worrying her lip with her teeth, and Cassie is about to burn a hole through Lila’s forehead with her glare.

Lila knows that she’s going to get a talking to, that she _deserves_ one, but between the battle and the worry over Harley, they’re all too drained to commit at the moment and for that, she can’t help but be a little grateful. They needed a cooling off period.

Clearly.

“ _Hey!_ Watch where you’re going!” Lila snaps as Cassie _accidentally_ bumps her shoulder as she passes, making her way towards the showers.

“I was, but you were rushing, _as usual_.”

“Excuse me?” Cassie turns back, meeting Lila with a cold look.

“Just, in general, you tend to rush. You made a snap judgment today, and that’s why Harley’s hurt.”

“Oh, shit,” Shuri mutters.

“Look, I know, okay. So you can quit it with your high-and-mighty bullshit, I fucking know.”

Cassie takes steps towards her. “See, I don’t think you _do_ know. You can’t just–”

 _"Enough!"_ Peter slams his hands on the table and everyone jumps. “Whatever feud it is that you two have going on, it ends today. We’re all worried about Harley, we all feel like shit. But we’re a team, and we should be above petty crap like this. _Work it out._ ” And with that he storms out of the room, leaving them in shock. Because yelling just isn’t _Peter_ , it’s not what he does. He’s Captain America-esque PSAs, quirked eyebrows, and playful scolding.

Clint is the first one to come back to himself, leveling a meaningful look at each of them before announcing, “What he said,” and then trailing out after Peter. Shuri a moment after.

Leaving Cassie and Lila alone.

Cassie sighs, looking significantly more world-weary than angry. “Look, can we hit the showers, then meet somewhere and talk.”

“Yeah.”

They meet in the common area about a half hour later, where Lila finds Cassie curled up on the couch with a blanket and two mugs of tea on the coffee table in front of her.

Lila sinks into the cushion next to her, feeling as sheepish as Cassie looks, and for a moment they just sit there.

Cassie breaks the silence first.

“I need you to know that I don’t have anything personal against you. I really don’t.”

“It doesn’t really seem that way,” Lila quips back, but there’s no heat behind it.

“I just–” Cassie wrinkles her nose, weighing her words. “I worry. Too much, I guess. Sometimes I feel like you don’t really understand what’s at stake when we go out there.”

Lila ducks her head, slightly abashed. “I know... How I get, and I know how it can look to other people. But I promise you, I’m always taking what we do seriously, even if I rely on my gut a little too much.”

Cassie meets her eyes meaningfully.

“You have to understand what it would do to all of us if something happened to you.”

That took Lila aback. She’d always assumed that Cassie’s nagging came from a place of superiority and condescension, not _worry_.

Cassie must see the confusion on her face because she continues, “Sure, it was Harley today. But too often you're putting your own neck on the line when it doesn’t need to be, and you have to be conscious of that.”

“Danger is a part of this job, we knew that coming in,” Lila tries to reason, and Cassie rubs tiredly at her forehead with one hand.

“Look, it takes me back to The Decimation, _okay?_ I know all too well what loss can do to people.”

 _Oh._ Gosh.

It was a truth universally known but not acknowledged that Cassie was the only one of their crew to have lived through those awful five years. Lila forgets sometimes that without it, she and Cassie would be the about the same age. The Decimation wasn’t something that they talked about–that _anyone_ talked about. Lila had known loss in her life, but she’s never been able to fathom the sheer magnitude of what everyone went through while she was gone, she didn’t think that anyone could unless they had been through it themselves.

(Lila knew that those five years had been an incredibly dark time for her Dad. She remembered being twelve years old, confused and frightened, reuniting with her father even though she had last seen him about an hour before. He had dropped to his knees and wept in a way that she could never forget.)

Cassie bites down hard on her lip, and a flush rises on her cheeks. “Going through that–Ugh, _going through that_ , that sounds so dumb, I just get hypersensitive about all this, I think that why I’m such a hardass with you, because I’m so paranoid about losing people.”

Cassie pulls absentmindedly at a loose thread on the sleeve of her sweatshirt, seeming determined to look anywhere but Lila’s face. 

“I remember, back after everyone got dusted, there was this news story that I obsessed over, I kept rereading it. It was about a woman who had just given birth, she was still in the hospital,” Lila feels her breath catch in her throat, knowing where this is going. “Her husband went first, then her newborn son turned to dust in her arms. I never found an update once everyone came back, I still look, though. Every once and awhile.”

“God, Cassie, I–”

“I’m not looking for pity or anything. I’m not special, half the fucking world went through the same thing I did, it’s just–” She sighs, “It’s hard sometimes, being the only one of us who lived through it. I’d talk to Clint, but he had it a lot worse than I did–than most people did, so I don’t wanna unload all that shit on him, you know? Sorry, I mean– Of course you know, he’s _your_ dad. So… That’s my explanation, I guess. For why I suck sometimes.”

Lila feels like such as asshole. And Cassie just looks _so fucking sad_ , curled up in her big hoodie, on the verge on tears.

“Hey, I think it’s fair to say that I suck worse by a significant margin,” Cassie gives a watery laugh at that, “And it wouldn’t kill me to be a bit more careful.” It sounds so simple, but Lila knows that Cassie picks up on the meaning behind her words, that she’s promising to be more than just _a bit_ more careful. “Now, come here, we’re obligated to hug now.”

That’s how Peter finds them later, cuddled up on the couch, passed out after such a physically and emotionally draining day, _Brave_ playing quietly on the TV.

He snaps a picture of Lila drooling all over Cassie’s shoulder.

_He has a feeling that they’re gonna be just fine._

**Author's Note:**

> you can pry my excessive use of commas and italics from my cold dead hands  
> kudos and comments are always appreciated!  
> thank you for reading, my loves!


End file.
